Wow. I lived on the same block as Barack Obama!

[Generic Brad]

Last week when Barack Obama returned to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother I saw video of him entering the condo where she lived. Well, I lived in Hawaii when I went to grad school and that building looked very familiar. My wife agreed with me, but we couldn't place exactly where we had seen that building with the distinctive awning.

Then I was reading a news report and saw that the condo she lives in was also the place Barack Obama lived when he was between the ages of 10 and 18. And that building was on S Beretania Street. What a coincidence. My wife and I met in a dormitory on S Beretania Street. So I went to Google Earth and was stunned to realize that our dormitory was right next door to Obama's boyhood home. I lived next door to his grandmother for a year and a half.

It's kind of cool to realize I have walked the same streets as our future president. I would walk by Punahou school where he went to high school every day on my way to the university. I know he has to have many of the same things in his experience that I have had. Did he eat that great Japanese food at the Hata diner on the other side of the block? Did he enjoy the smell of the fresh bread baking at King's Bakery when the wind was blowing just right? Did he shop at Foodland a block away? Did he ever eat the Surf Pack at Zippy's? Surely he saw the college students in the dorm next to his house and saw people from all over the world meeting, studying, and getting along.

Some of my fondest personal memories have occurred in the same space he occupied at another time. I doubt our paths ever crossed. I just thought it was pretty cool to discover I once lived right next door to where our next president lived for eight years.

[KamaAina]

1. Supposedly Zippy's was high on the list when he visited in Aug.

for those of you just joining us, Zippy's is a local restaurant chain (about three dozen of 'em on an island of 600 sq. mi.!) serving everything from chili (served over rice, or for the less adventurous, spaghetti) to saimin (Japanese-style noodle soup with fish cake). The original location is about three blocks from "Toot"'s building.

Gee, thanks. No more bragging for me about how I live five whole blocks from there! :( I will, however, be voting for him at the middle school two blocks away, down the block from Zippy's.

edit: I forgot Zippy's chili spaghetti? Ai yi yi!

[Generic Brad]

2. Is the huge banyan tree still at Banyan Tree Plaza?

A friend of mine in Hilo told me he heard it had been removed.

[KamaAina]

5. Dunno brah. Haven't been over that way in quite a while.

I'm makai (toward the ocean) from there, nearer Don Quijote (which you may know as Daiei or even Holiday Mart), so I rarely get mauka (opposite of makai) of King St. these days.

[tigereye]

3. I love the idea of a well-traveled President who spent his formative years

off the mainland.

[KamaAina]

4. Ceratinly better than a Vice President who did

and can see Russia from her house! :P